If you've had about enough of the sordid and the embarrassing, I've got an oasis for you.

If you're fed up with athletes brandishing guns (real or fake) or creating a late-night ruckus at a convenience store or testing positive for performanceenhancing drugs, listen up.

Spend some time with the Mapus.

I did Monday and I feel better about life.

"They're an incredible group of people,'' UT coach Phillip Fulmer said. "Hard-working, loving, loyal, very, very dedicated-totheir-faith people.''

The Mapu family was on the University of Tennessee campus Monday. They're bringing their baby son, J.T. Mapu, back to Fulmer and the UT football program after a two-year hiatus to serve his Mormon mission.

They'll soon be back home on the North Shore of the Hawaiian island of Oahu, where I'm confident they'd welcome you into their home if you showed up.

But if the trip sounds too daunting, visit the Mapus online at www.danielmapu.com.

Most UT football fans know the story of Daniel Mapu by now. In August 2003, J.T.'s older brother was struck by a truck while participating in a drug-free demonstration alongside a highway near his home.

The accident left Daniel, a former high school football star, with severe injuries to his body and his brain.

Most would rightfully see it as a tragedy, and it is. And yet the Mapus have transformed Daniel's misfortune into an inspiration.

They celebrate his life, forever altered though it is. With help from the extended clan, they rotate in shifts to provide around-the-clock care since he came home from the hospital last August.

The Web page chronicles the months since the accident in pictures and updates. You can't help but feel the loving vibrations.

Monday, the family came to send J.T. off on another mission, one in which he is a 310-pound defensive lineman bent on knocking down people.

Simi, the dad, Maryann, the mom, brother Jimmy and sisters Ane and Natile were there. And so was Daniel, in his wheelchair, silently taking it all in.

After a point, the doctors said they'd done about all they could for Daniel. He is alert, speaks a few words, can move his right arm but mostly communicates with expressions.

"We see him do things,'' Simi Mapu said Monday. "He's aware. He responds to us. That's all we can ask until the Lord is willing and ready.

"It's a test, mostly for us a family. We're lucky that we've got good kids that help us as parents. We're blessed.''

J.T. is the last of the Mapu children to fulfill a Mormon mission. Sister Ane got home from hers in Utah two summers ago just as J.T. was leaving for his.

J.T. had played two seasons for the Vols when his call arrived in the mailbox, a white envelope from Mormon headquarters.

"It's been a tradition,'' J.T. said, "that we gather together, the big family. We go around the room and ask people to make guesses as to where you're going.

"Finally, you open it up and see where you're going, then there's a big cheer.''

J.T. went to Houston. In addition to knocking on doors to witness for the church, he helped the area recover from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina last fall, both in Texas and Louisiana.

"We'd just show up with a tractor and chainsaws and start going at it,'' he said.

"People would come out with tears in their eyes and say, 'Where did you come from?' "

From an amazing family, that's where.

Steve Caldwell, the UT assistant who recruited J.T., has made several visits to the Mapus. He took Fulmer with him on a recruiting trip last December.

"We talk about family in the South,'' Caldwell said, "but they go way out and reach in to each other.

"It's not just the immediate family. It's the whole Polynesian culture, the Samoans, the church. They all really help each other out.''

Simi Mapu, a policeman, shrugs. He doesn't see anything heroic about his family's bond:

"People say, 'You all are amazing, doing all this,' but to me as a father, you do what you have to do for your kids.''

And when you do that, they turn out pretty good.

"It all starts in the home,'' J.T. said. "It all stems back to the family.''